Linda Gittleman: Having much and giving much

I got a call from a gentleman from Coleman who didn’t like the column about the ridiculous home for sale in California.

That’s the house that is largely underground and has an indoor tennis court, which can be converted into a ballroom, as well as an outdoor tennis court.

It also has indoor and outdoor swimming pools and 25 bathrooms, one of which is 10,000 square feet.

It’s selling for $55 million, which pales when compared to some New York penthouses that I understand sell for more than $100 million, although we don’t know how many bathrooms or tennis courts morphing into ballrooms they have.

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Anyway, the Coleman gentleman was upset that I didn’t write about something – for heaven’s sake – more important.

Like his daughter.

His daughter is working at an orphanage and she gets paid exactly nothing.

She is somebody to write about.

So I called him back. His name is Bob Bearss.

Bob’s daughter, Sarah Jane Bearss, is 33 years old and has a degree in child development and social work from Ohio Wesleyan. For the past several years she had worked as a nanny and loved it.

Even so, “I think she’s always had it in the back of her mind to become a missionary,’ her dad said.

When the opportunity came up to work at an orphanage in Haiti run by a couple originally from Midland, she grabbed it.

“She was supposed to observe for a month,” he said. But a baby got sick on her first day and that was the end of any more “observing.”

Sarah has six or seven babies to take care of now. Most of their mothers, he pointed out, died in childbirth.

“She loves babies,” her dad said. “She works Monday through Saturdays and more I suspect, than eight hours a day.”

Churches in the area and in the state help pay Sarah’s expenses.

Sarah now lives in a small cottage – “it’s like a motel room,” her dad said – and it allows her to do her own cooking.

She left for Haiti in June, and in December she’ll come home for a little while and at that time, she’ll decide if she wants to go back.

Bob said his daughter has always had a need to be engaged with people.

“I told her, with social work you won’t get rich,” he said. “Don’t you want to make money?”

No, she told him.

“I want to help people.”

Linda Gittleman may be reached at 989-463-6071, lgittleman@michigannewspapers.com or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/lgittleman.